PwC settles $5.5 billion Taylor Bean suit

Most Read

While it is true that a timeshare contract is a binding legal document, it is often mistakenly thought that such a contract cannot only be cancelled. In fact, most timeshare companies maintain that their contracts are non – cancellable. This misconception is perpetuated by timeshare companies and user groups that are funded, maintained and controlled by the timeshare industry.

The FHA 203k loan program provides home buyers the opportunity to buy and fix up a property, without exhausting their personal savings.

PricewaterhouseCoopers has settled a lawsuit that claimed it failed to detect the fraud that caused the collapse of a major mortgage company.

The lawsuit concerned Taylor, Bean & Whitaker, which collapsed in 2009. The mortgage lender’s bankruptcy trustee had sought more than $5.5 billion in damages from PwC, according to a Reuters report. The terms of the settlement are confidential.

“It was settled to the mutual satisfaction of the parties,” Steven Thomas, the trustee’s attorney, told Reuters.

The lawsuit concerned PwC’s auditing work for Alabma=based Colonial BancGroup, where Taylor Bean was a customer. Taylor Bean head Lee Farkas and other executives hid the company’s losses by moving money among Colonial accounts and by selling worthless or nonexistent mortgages, Reuters reported. The lawsuit said that PwC should have caught such a massive fraud in its audits.
In August 2009, both Taylor Bean and Colonial filed for bankruptcy. Colonial’s collapse was the sixth-largest bank failure in US history.

Farkas was convicted on fraud charges and sentenced in 2011 to 30 years in federal prison, according to Reuters.